Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and social activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
He had a dream, and so do you. Inspiring Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes will help you remember the power of a vision and give you the courage to act upon your own dreams.
If you’re searching for best quotes about life that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by Mother Teresa, powerful Malcolm X quotes, and top Nelson Mandela quotes.
Best Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. Martin Luther King Jr.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase. Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. Martin Luther King Jr.
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. Martin Luther King Jr.
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King Jr.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King Jr.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Intelligence plus character that is the goal of true education. Martin Luther King Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. Martin Luther King Jr.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. Martin Luther King Jr.
That old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live. Martin Luther King Jr.
Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. Martin Luther King Jr.
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King Jr.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others. Martin Luther King Jr.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King Jr.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. Martin Luther King Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls. Martin Luther King Jr.
Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. Martin Luther King Jr.
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King Jr.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. Martin Luther King, Jr.
People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other. Martin Luther King Jr.
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Martin Luther King Jr.
A lie cannot live. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. Martin Luther King Jr.
There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people. Martin Luther King Jr.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the good Samaritan reversed the question If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others? Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Martin Luther King Jr.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The choice is not between violence and nonviolence but between nonviolence and nonexistence. Martin Luther King Jr.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend. Martin Luther King Jr.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But the good Samaritan reversed the question If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? Martin Luther King Jr.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. Martin Luther King Jr.
The time is always right to do what is right. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Martin Luther King Jr.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Martin Luther King Jr.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. Martin Luther King, Jr.
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr.
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. Martin Luther King Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King Jr.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr.
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. Martin Luther King Jr.
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt. Martin Luther King, Jr.
